* Implements the Core language of Standard ML, as revised 1997
(value polymorphism, default overloading resolution, new types).
* Implements most of the new Standard ML Basis Library, including
the most common input/output facilities in TextIO and BinIO.
* Features an on-line help function.
* Implements separate compilation and a limited version of the
Standard ML Modules language, with signatures and non-nested
structures but no functors.
* Can produce compact stand-alone executables (a la Caml Light).
* Supports quotations and antiquotations, useful for metaprogramming.
* Provides dynamic linking of external functions (Linux, Solaris,
Digital Unix, HP-UX, MacOS, Win'95/98/NT)

SML BASIS LIBRARY

The SML Basis Library is an attempt to rationalize the collection of
built-in types and functions, with the aim of improving portability of
Standard ML programs. Standard ML of New Jersey, Harlequin MLWorks,
and Moscow ML implement the Standard Library.

STAND-ALONE EXECUTABLES

Moscow ML can generate compact linked bytecode files in the style of
Caml Light. A bytecode file calls on the shared runtime system to run
itself.

SIMPLIFIED MODULES LANGUAGE

The sublanguage of Modules implemented by Moscow ML contains
signatures and non-nested structures, and identifies structures with
source files. It is less expressive than the full Standard ML Modules
language, but the type-safe separate compilation facility is simple,
quite useful, and easy to use. It is the intention to implement the
full Standard ML Modules language (including functors) in due course.

SEPARATE COMPILATION

Compilation of a signature produces a compiled interface file, which
is used when compiling other signatures and structures.

Moscow ML was written by
Sergei Romanenko (roman@keldysh.ru)
Keldysh Institute of Applied Mathematics, Russian Academy of Sciences
Miusskaya Pl. 4, 125047 Moscow, Russia.
and Peter Sestoft (sestoft@dina.kvl.dk),
Department of Mathematics and Physics, Royal Veterinary and
Agricultural University, Thorvaldsensvej 40, DK-1871 Frederiksberg C,
Denmark. Much work was done at the Technical University of Denmark
and while visiting AT&T Bell Laboratories, New Jersey, USA.

Moscow ML owes much to:
* the CAML Light implementation by Xavier Leroy and Damien Doligez
(INRIA, Rocquencourt, France); especially the Caml Light bytecode
generator and the runtime system;
* the ML Kit by Lars Birkedal, Nick Rothwell, Mads Tofte and David Turner
(Copenhagen University, Denmark, and Edinburgh University, Scotland);
* inspiration from the SML/NJ compiler developed at Princeton
University and AT&T Bell Laboratories, New Jersey, USA; and
* the good work by Doug Currie, Flavors Technology, USA, on the
MacOS port.